On the day of launch, Jason made $11,000.
Section 4: Reflection, Conclusion, and
Inspiration
We’re nearing the finish line, folks. This is the last section of the book, and I want to share some of the “deeper” stuff with you. The wild ride I’ve been on with IWearYourShirt and my other ventures has led me to some conclusions about what I think is important in life, and I’ve made some big life changes as a result.
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Chapter 21
Misfits
In the spring of 2013, I was in a bit of a funk. IWearYourShirt hadn’t grown into the massive global t-shirt wearing empire I had imagined, and I had announced I was retiring from wearing t-shirts. That point in my life felt very much like those days back in high school cafete- rias, standing in the doorway with no place to sit. I felt quite lost in my life and didn’t really know what I was going to do.
Right around then, my good friends AJ and Melissa Leon (find them on page 186) organized a small event to bring people from all walks of life—misfits—together in an attempt to “make a dent in the universe,” and they called it the Misfit Conference, or Misfit Con, for short. Melissa asked me to speak at the event and talk about my success with all my unconventional businesses. There was a bit of irony that Melissa had asked me to come share my story, since I wasn’t feeling too successful at the time. Because I valued Melissa and AJ’s friendship so much, I agreed to speak and figured I could bury my feelings and get through the event with a smile on my face. Little did I know what was to come.
When I arrived at Misfit Con in downtown Fargo, North Dakota, one of the first people I saw across the quaint art gallery (that was hosting the event) was a familiar face: Pamela (Pam) Slim.
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The last time I saw Pam was back in March 2011, while I wan- dered the streets of downtown Austin, Texas, at SXSW. I spotted her through the crowd back in Austin, and when I did, I diverted my path directly toward her. She saw me coming, mostly because at 6'5" tall, I’m hard to miss. We’d never met in person before that day (only chatted via social media), but Pam swung her arms open wide and gave me a hug like we were long lost friends. Since that first meeting, I’ve always felt a warm sense of friendship from Pam, and I was glad to see that she had also decided to attend Misfit Con. Once again, I made my way toward Pam and she swung open her arms and gave me a big hug. This encounter, however, was different. Pam and I were both attending Misfit Con as speakers, but no one attending the event was labeled as anything other than a “misfit.”
Pam took the stage early in the event, and it was the first time I heard her tell her story. She talked about experiencing cultures around the world, being in difficult relationships, figuring out what her values were, what her talents (ingredients, as she calls them) were, and what brought her happiness and the feeling of success in life. She shared a touching story of a school renovation that her father had worked on and the lessons she learned from it. I’m not an emotional guy, but Pam’s personal story and the story of this school renovation touched me. I found myself wanting to know how Pam had figured all this stuff out. How she had overcome her adversities, and how she had looked within herself to figure out her values and unleash her talents onto the world?
To remind you, at that time, I was in a tough place mentally, emotionally, and financially. I didn’t know it at the time, but hearing Pam’s talk completely changed the talk I would give at that event. I had initially planned on talking about all my successes (like I nor- mally would), but instead, I wanted to tell people where I really
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was in life. None of my talk was planned, scripted, or premeditated. I wanted the audience to know that from the outside, I looked like this super successful entrepreneur, doing what I loved and having loads of money in my bank account, but on the inside, I was the ex- act opposite on all fronts. I was in debt. I wasn’t happy at all. I had gained back a bunch of weight that I had
painstakingly lost less than a year prior. I wasn’t going to lie to this small group of people. I was going to tell them exactly how I was feeling and what I was going through. I sat down for a Q&A session with Srinivas (Srini) Rao, a surfer who
had made a name for himself conducting interviews for his site BlogcastFM (now: Unmistakeable Creative), but I don’t remember much else besides a leather stool on which I sat and the small black stage, with Srini sitting across from me on another stool, his coffee in one hand and a microphone in the other.
An audience of about 50 people, including my girlfriend, Caro- line, stared at me, ready to hear all about my success and how happy I was. It was the first time I’d ever felt close to vomiting be- fore talking in front of an audience (and I’m never that nervous or have that type of feeling before talking in front of people).
Srini asked me to tell everyone a little bit about my backstory. I answered with an abridged version and let people know that this talk was going to be different from what I normally did. About 45 minutes went by that I don’t remember much of, other than trying to hold back tears while pouring my heart and soul out to these complete strangers. That, and a question from Srini about what I had been like as a kid, with my response being a joke about getting an “unsatisfactory” mark when it came to “speaking out in class.”